ASUS is clearly dominating the ultra-mobile notebook market with its Eee PCs. But local executives said that it will remain a niche player in this ever-competitive market for notebooks.

The photo features the Eee Box (left) which comes with a 16-inch LCD monitor, while to the right
is the Eee PC 900, the first to have the Intel Atom processor, which has not yet been introduced to the Philippines due to the availability of the Eee PC 1000 series.

INQUIRER.net community evangelist Alexander Villafania talks to Asus Philippines Country Manager Leon Yu who stressed that its latest Intel Atom-based ultra-mobile notebooks will not compete with other brands using the same processor.

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By Alexander Villafania
INQUIRER.net

MOTOROLA is keen on making impressions last when designing their phones. This started a couple years ago when they introduced the ROKR, RAZR series and SLVER series.

Then they started having partnerships with several audio hardware manufacturers to complement their strategy in the mobile phone business. Motorola focused so much on design that the accessories had to look as good as the phones. That’s not a surprise considering that in a cutthroat business like the mobile phone-music player hybrid manufacturing, the one with the most fashionable design wins.

The MotoROKR series maybe the brand’s most prolific model as it caters to music enthusiasts. It competes directly with Sony Ericsson’s Walkman series and the Nokia N series. The latest in the ROKR series is the E8 and is a huge departure from the previous designs, particularly the E6 and Z6 models. This time, Motorola went back to the drawing board to create an entirely new ROKR, in the hopes of reigniting the enthusiasm for their music phones.

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By Alexander Villafania
INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines – Intel Atom, the much awaited ultra-mobile PC (UMPC) processor, is making waves worldwide. However, it is just about to test the waters in the Philippines, where a majority of portable PC buyers would want to spend as little as possible. It was expected that the Atom, a low-power chip for basic computer requirements, will supply the budget-conscious PC market with low-cost computers.

So far, two brands have introduced Atom-powered notebook computers in the Philippines: MSI with its Wind and Acer’s Aspire One. Both are currently being distributed and both are priced much lower than their larger, more powerful counterparts.

Being low-energy devices mean that these cannot match the power of notebooks based on Intel’s other processors, including the Celeron and the recently-revived Pentium branded Dual Core processors.
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By Alex Villafania
INQUIRER.net

QUEZON City, Philippines — There are few devices that make life easier to bear. Some are heavily marketed but are totally useless. Others have become technology icons with a cult following. Then there’s the Flip.

At first glance the Flip, a video recording device, does not call too much attention to itself. It is the size of the most basic digital camera and weighs just as much. Its lens is at the front and the LCD is no bigger than 1.4 inches, diagonally. The control buttons are bland. Only the large red “Record” button is most prominent. The power button is on one side and a sliding switch flips out a spring-loaded USB dongle. This is as basic as any device could get.

But then, it is that basic design that makes the Flip a worthwhile device. This is one gadget that is purpose-built for the video-shooting buff and one that deserves a lot of praise from video bloggers and digital home video enthusiasts.

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By Alex Villafania
INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines — Laptop manufacturing firms from Taiwan are trying to outdo Asustek in the sub-notebook category. Some of them are trying to steer clear from being labeled “Eee PC wannabes” but far from being successful and that’s what they really are.

On the one hand, the Eee PC isn’t the first in the market but it was the one that truly set the standards with the sub-notebook genre with PC-like capabilities packed in a small frame. These features include wireless fidelity (wifi) support, Bluetooth, and the ability to run a power-hungry operating system with an underpowered processor. It also uses a solid state drive – a thumb drive chip, if you will, that is embedded inside a device no bigger than a school notebook.

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